The proper
estimates were to be submitted to him as soon as possible, and it
would greatly facilitate his entering into definite arrangements
with the workpeople, if he could be informed of the exact period
at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take place. He
could then make all his calculations in reference to time, besides
writing the necessary apologies to friends who had been engaged to
visit him that winter, and who could not, of course, be received
when the house was in the hands of the workmen.
To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by requesting Sir Percival
himself to suggest a day for the marriage, subject to Miss
Fairlie's approval, which her guardian willingly undertook to do
his best to obtain. Sir Percival wrote back by the next post, and
proposed (in accordance with his own views and wishes from the
first?) the latter part of December--perhaps the twenty-second, or
twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and her guardian
might prefer. The lady not being at hand to speak for herself,
her guardian had decided, in her absence, on the earliest day
mentioned--the twenty-second of December, and had written to
recall us to Limmeridge in consequence.
After explaining these particulars to me at a private interview
yesterday, Mr.
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